Music Scene: Tia Fuller is moving out of Beyonce’s shadow

Jay N. Miller

Friday

Jan 28, 2011 at 12:01 AMJan 28, 2011 at 10:36 PM

Tia Fuller chuckles softly at the mention that many music fans equate listening to jazz with a trip to the dentist. Yet it almost seems contradictory that her biggest claim to fame as of late is her association with Beyonce, for whom she serves as a member of her all-female touring band.

Tia Fuller chuckles softly at the mention that many music fans equate listening to jazz with a trip to the dentist. As a noted jazz educator, it’s her mission to convince people otherwise, which she does as a traveling lecturer.

It’s a passion that has led her to some of the nation’s most respected educational institutions. Yet it almost seems contradictory that her biggest claim to fame as of late is her association with Beyonce, for whom she serves as a member of her all-female touring band.

Currently, she’s taking a little “me” time, releasing a new album and touring with her own jazz quartet. She’s had a life that has been about music from the time she left the womb.

Both of her parents were music educators in Denver’s public schools. Her dad was a bassist and her mother a singer. Fuller followed her older sister, Shamie, into piano lessons at age 3, switched to flute by age 9 and later took up saxophone. Fuller was a magna cum laude graduate of Spelman College’s music department in Georgia, and followed that up by earning her master’s degree in jazz and performance, summa cum laude, at the University of Colorado in 2000.

“I can always remember my mom and dad rehearsing down in our basement, where they’d be playing songs by Sarah Vaughan, Marlena Shaw and even getting into John Coltrane or Charlie Parker stuff,” Fuller said.

“Charlie Parker and Coltrane were two early influences, and the first solo I transcribed as a freshman at Spelman was Cannonball Adderley’s ‘Stars Fell on Alabama.’ That really opened me up to his sound, and Cannonball became a special favorite for his soulfulness, and the wonderful control he had of his tone and sound.”

Fuller said her real schooling in jazz began in Manhattan, where she performed with such luminaries as Jimmy Heath, Rufus Reid, Jon Faddis and T.S. Monk.

“When I came to New York in 2001, I had it in my mind to both play with my own group and also as a sideman,” Fuller said. “I wanted to experience playing with some of the masters, to gain that experience and see how they work as bandleaders.”

The connection with Beyonce began in 2006 when, between working on her own material, Fuller auditioned for the multi-Grammy winner.

“It was a daylong process,” Fuller said. “Before I played, Beyonce walked in and took a seat. Later, when they began calling out the names of people who’d made it .... my name was not called. Beyonce said ‘wait a minute, where’s Tia?’ and sent her manager to make sure I got into the next round.”

The payoff, of course, was steady work on the pop star’s world tours the past four years and frequent spotlight solos that raised her profile beyond the world of jazz. Fuller even had a solo on “Me, Myself and I.”

“My work with Beyonce has definitely helped me understand how showmanship can really help enhance the music.”

While the saxophone is one of the pre-eminent jazz instruments, there are precious few female sax players and even fewer female jazz bandleaders. That’s a situation Fuller would like to change.

“It is definitely more challenging being a woman in jazz,” she said. “But ... women have always been present in jazz as instrumentalists ... But they’ve somehow been lost in the history books.

“I believe as more young women see women like me accomplishing things, more will come into jazz.”

Fuller’s new CD, “Decisive Steps” on Mack Avenue Records, features her quartet, which includes her sister, Shamie Royston, on piano. Fuller contributes on alto sax, soprano sax and flute.

The album, her third, captivates you with its very melodic appeal and playful creativity.

My biggest fan

As some of you may know, my mother, Frances Miller, passed away Tuesday after a long and full life. It was from her that I acquired my love of reading, music and empathy; meanwhile, my late father gave me my love of sports, sense of humor and innate Scottish stubbornness.

In the five years since his death, Fran amazed us all with her independent spirit, and the way she defied the experts to battle back from a stroke in 2009. I grew up in a house where music was often playing, for which I am eternally grateful. And attending concerts at the nursing home she lived in these past couple years was one of Mom’s greatest pleasures. Nat “King” Cole, Dean Martin, and Jay N. Miller have just lost their biggest fan.

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